Death in Amber

A wondrous room made from panels of carved amber – a gift in the 18th Century to Peter the Great, Czar of Russia. Once part of a palace outside St Petersburg, this priceless treasure has been missing since the end of World War II. Removed from the palace by a Nazi art collection squad at the height of the war, the Amber Room was last seen in Königsbourg in late 1944 – it vanished without a trace. Now, someone knows where it has come to rest and will do anything to get it. Ninety years on and beautiful young women are being found dead with no evidence of why they died. Forensics has no clues and fewer answers. Haunted by a mysterious benefactress, Jaared Sen is hired by an old friend to find his missing niece. A Contractor for The Company, Jaared is the only one who can find her – and the Amber Room – before the killer strikes again.

Missing since the end of World War II, the priceless Amber Room has been searched for by dictators, secret police and treasure hunters since 1945. A gift to Peter the Great from Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, the room, made of tons of carved amber backed with gold foil, was installed in the Yekaterinksy Palace by Elizabeth I outside St Petersburg in 1755 by her pet architect, Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli. There it remained until 1941, when a Nazi art collection team — the Sonderkomando Künsberg, a specialist art collection unit — removed the room and transported it to Kaliningrad. After being on display in the Konigsberg Art Museum it was moved to Konigsberg Castle. It disappeared in 1944 and no one has seen it since. Until now.

Three people are caught up in the search for it – two by chance and a series of murders, one because he has a talent for ‘finding things’. An investigator for the zaibatsu-like Company and blind for more than half of his 167 years, Jaared Sen is investigating the disappearances and murders of young Asian women with a mercenary girl named Skeet. Alicia Sampson, Chief Medical Examiner for the City of London, is unable to find a cause of death in any of the young women, the mystery of their deaths eluding her. Pocock Woffe, or Wolf to his friends, is an antiquarian bookseller with a sideline in finding things other people can’t locate — a talent that brings him and those friends to the attention of someone looking for the fabled Amber Room.